The group started in Whitewater in 1995 but moved to VOA in 2001, according to club member Bob Bottenhorn, the group’s commodore, who has been sailing radio control boats since 2000.
All the boats have the same measurements, but sailors can use different controllers and batteries, and rig the rudders and sails to the controllers differently. Before sailing, members can adjust the shape of the sails.
Bottenhorn said the hobby does not require a lot of skill, “just get used to steering with a radio and knowing the sailing rules.”
“I love to sail,” Bottenhorn said. “It’s competitive and I don’t golf.”
Each race takes place every other Tuesday and is about one-third of a mile, or about 15 minutes long, Bottenhorn said. Contests occur throughout the season and are averaged together over that time.
“We host regattas, which draw people from other clubs,” Bottenhorn said. “Trophies are given to the top three contenders.”
Jim Miller, of Middletown, said he likes that the sailing club is “competitive, but not cut-throat.”
“We can race and run into one another and at the end of the day it’s all good fun and nobody takes anything too seriously,” Miller said.
Rob Hill, of Finneytown, said the sport’s appeal is that it is “pretty close” to actual sailing but with less hassle.
“You don’t have to find a crew, you don’t have logistics and you don’t have to get a trailer and get the boat here,” Hill said, motioning to the shore. “You just walk down here and pop it in and you’re sailing.”
VOA MetroPark offers an opportune place to do so, he said.
“You’ve always got wind, the course is wonderful and the people are great,” Hill said. “It just a wonderful place to sail.”
Jerry Callahan, of Trenton, who first started learning how to sail “people boats” 75 years ago as a small child, said he likes that VOA Park is open without a lot of trees and not “way down in a gully.”
“A lot of the other places, they’re down in the valley and you don’t get a lot of wind, but up here we’ve got wind most of the time,” he said.
RCSCC is sanctioned club of the American Model Yacht Association, which was formed in 1970 as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting the designing, building, racing and preservation of all model sailing yachts.
Dues are $10 a year and the 10-pound Soling One Meter crafts that club members sail are a kit sold by Victor Model Products for about $250 and are miniatures of Olympic boats sailed in the 1980s.
For more information, visit www.rcscc.org.
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